Friday, November 09, 2012

NaNoWriMo day nine

There was the dream of the
redheaded fox. It took place sometime in the 1960s, or so Crow surmised,
because he thought he was with his wife, Deborah, and their son, Jamie, was
just a little baby. Sometimes, they were in the dream. Sometimes, they were
not. But they were always silent, bystanders to the action.

The setting was parklike, a
roadside, on the edge of a copse of trees, somewhere in Iowa or the Dakotas,
Interstate 80 or 90, it didn't matter. They were having a picnic. Others were
coming and going, a bustling scene, festive, a picnic. Crow was resting on his
elbows. He wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt. A woman in a paisley skirt
stood nearby, looking into a shaded plate glass window outside a concrete and
glass temple of modernity -- a highway rest stop. Crow was in the grass, on a
blanket, a picnic spread before him, the trees behind, looming, a vast field
before him, the hissing string of the highway spreading off to infinity, the
grand vista of westward expansion, manifest destiny.

And as if to contrast with
all of these signs of civilization, a glimpse of orange in his periphery
vision, and then it comes into full view, a fox, but large, taller than any
Crow had ever seen, more like a greyhound, but a fox nonetheless, bright
orange, white and crimson, slinky and loping. Crow looked around. No one else
could see the fox and yet the fox also seemed unaware of him. The fox snuck up
behind the woman in the paisley dress, a large, baglike purse draped casually
over her shoulder. And just as it appeared behind her, the fox metamorphized
into a tall woman, waiflike, flowing orange-red hair, a dress seeming of woven
gauze, the slight tint of orange and red. Features flat, as if she was created
with a few quick brush strokes and set alight on reality.

Crow looked on benignly,
curious, as the fox-turned-into-a-woman casually reaches into the woman's purse
and removes a wallet. She then walks behind a man standing nearby, arms akimbo,
absently staring off into the vista, again, oddly unaware of the presence of
this alien creature. Crow knew what she wanted to do and decided to move into
action. He rose. The fox woman had her back turned to him. He moved slowly, as
syrupy slow as can only be achieved in dreams, and grabbed the fox woman by the
wrist.

She turned to him, and her
head is already a fox's again, all snarl and sneer and teeth. Crow pushed it
away with his free hand while keeping an iron grip on the cold wrist. The face
reappeared, and it's the woman's face again, looking hurt and sad -- resigned
to her fate. And just as Crow is moved also to sadness and remorse, feeling
compelled to let this wild creature free, the woman's face distorts and blurs
and spins...

And then Crow woke up...

It was always best when Crow
had the fox woman dream in People's Park for, despite the sound of the train
and the noises of civilization, being in the woods gave one the feeling of
nature, and when Crow awoke he would look around for the fox woman. It was
easier to hold onto the dream.

But on this morning, he was
in the basement at the Augusta Inn. And a little hungover. He'd used a little
extra money from the previous day of can collecting to buy a bottle of cheap
wine. And whenever he drank, he ended up the Augusta Inn. Crow had innate fear
of mixing alcohol with the outdoors. He'd ready too many newspaper articles at
the library about homeless people being found in public parks, dead by exposure
or some careless accident.

The dream of the fox woman
always left Crow with a sense of longing for all he'd lost -- a car, movement,
transportation, his family, his youth, his strength. In the dream his grip was
so strong. And what did it all mean?

For all he'd lost, Crow had
his wits about him. Let the rest of the world think him crazy because he was
homeless, and was silent, but he was not. Anyone could avail themselves of the
various social services. He could stay at the homeless shelter instead of the
woods or the basement of the Augusta Inn. He could get a job. Even though he
was in his sixties, and most of his front teeth were missing, Crow stayed hale
and sinewy and alert. And he thanked homeless living for keeping him that way.

He sat up, the layers of
cardboard beneath him shifting as he moved his legs. A gray, soft light
filtered through the cobwebs and the dust caked on the basement windows. He
listened to the shuffle of feet overhead, the rush and hiss of water in a pipe.
In the next room was a washing machine, dryer, and a big concrete sink. Crow
removed the musty layers of blankets and tattered sleeping bags and put them
back in a garbage bag. He cinched the bag tight. Nearby was a set of cabinets,
and counters that used to be in the kitchen upstairs. Crow picked up the
flattened cardboard and slid it behind this fixture. He opened a cabinet door
and stuffed the bag as far back underneath as he could, straining and grunting
to compress and conceal his stash.

Crow took one last look
around and patted himself to make sure nothing was missing. He reached into a
flannel shirt pocket and pulled out a toothbrush. As he brushed, he coughed and
hacked, as muffled as he could, not wishing to draw attention from above to his
presence. Every once in awhile Chalmers, Mackey, or someone familiar caught him
here. They were cool about the presence. Mackey, on really cold nights or times
of bad weather, made sure to keep the back door unlocked to let Crow in. Crow
never let anyone see him slink in through a window in the sideyard. He always
made sure this was unlocked before he left. But he would try the back door
first. Sometimes Crow and Mackey hung out together in Mackey's attic room,
drinking beer and watching horror movies on video tape. Mackey liked Crow
because Crow didn't talk much.

"No bullshitting with
you, eh, Crow," Mackey said.

As if to emphasize this, Crow
just nodded his head.

Crow looked at Bonneville
from the unique perspective of someone in his position. Greek Row was a money
pit. Each day he collected enough cans from the drinking habits of college
students to get 35-40 pounds of cans. If he found a discarded mini-fridge,
which he often did at the end of the semester, he would get it away from a
dumpster, conceal it as best he could, and visit Errol Gray, owner of a local
thrift shop, who would drive Crow back to the fridge and pay him $10 on the
spot if it worked all right. Errol also let Crow hang around the shop and had
him work the register or do small electronic repairs for a little extra
spending cash.

Crow knew every hidden nook
and cranny in the two large public parks, People's Park to the south of campus,
the public space between the campus and Greek Row, and the Fern Bottoms forest
preserve on the north side which, as its name suggests, was a flood plain of
the Kushamukee River. He had constructed semi-permanent shelters at each park,
stashing a cache of bedding, extra clothes, cook pot, bottle of alcohol, and
various other sundry in honeysuckle thickets or up in the hollow log of a tree.
Crow could track the various animal footprints, could trap, skin and eat
possum, squirrel and raccoon, and could catch bullhead, carp, bass, and
bluegill from the Kushamukee using nothing but a beer can, a hook, and
scavenged fishing line.

He also had three or four
bikes locked up in various spots around town. Whenever he found a new one, or a
broken one thrown away, he'd take it to Errol's shop, where Errol let him use
his tools, fix the bike into workable shape, and more often than not give it to
Errol as a goodwill gesture. Crow's economy was one of goodwill. He saw the
exchange of money as "too easy," and "the evils of Mammon."

He much preferred a barter
economy, a free exchange of goods. Or, more often than not, Crow just gave away
his bounty, knowing that if he ever needed help, the recipients of his goodwill
would be there for him. Thing was, Crow never collected on this debt of gratitude.
He considered it a point of pride that while he was regarded with pity and
disdain by the world at large, sometimes hassled by some self-righteous
neo-conservative to "get a job." Or, more often than not, students
would throw stuff out of their car windows at him or he would be confronted at
a dumpster by an irate property manager. Crow tried to move easily through his
universe. He regarded such conflicts with an air of dismissiveness, moving on
quietly. No need for confrontation. Good rarely came from loggerheads, he liked
to think.

The friends in Crow's world,
Mackey, Errol, the librarians at the Bonneville Public Library, and the odd
student or two, interested in social justice, who deigned to recognize his
presence -- all who knew of Crow--
eventually came to honor him. He possessed a peace and sense of perspective
seemingly lost to most in the haste and rush for the big money grab of
modernity.

This is why the dream of the
fox woman seemed so disconcerting, set Crow awry. It gave him a rare feeling --
desire. What did Buddha call that? Crow thought. The source of all suffering.
For while Crow, through stealth and cunning, had carved out a unique and
satisfying existence for himself, the dream of the fox woman exposed two
glaring absences in Crow's world -- the loss of love and intimacy. And the loss
of Jamie, his son, who was still alive, still somewhere in the world, for all
he knew, and yet he knew not where, had no means of contacting him, and had not
been sought out by Jamie. They hadn't seen each other in nearly 20 years. The
fox woman was a shapeshifter, a powerful symbol in dreams, suggesting some
crucial missing part of one's identity. Crow theorized it was the one missing
thing he wanted -- Jamie.

The other thing was a long
dormant sexual desire. The fox woman turned him on. She was his magic,
fantastic lover. Tragic, too. Because sexual fulfillment was the greatest
farce. Crow thanked the benefits of his age. His desire was a distant ebb, made
more urgent by the dream, but quickly receding to its former place of limited
importance.